Taking the Wikileak

It is becoming difficult to decide if Wikileaks is, on balance, a force for the betterment of mankind - or the reverse.

I must admit that I was initially inclined to the former view, but of late I am somewhat reluctantly coming round to the latter.

Now I am naturally inclined to see something like Wikileaks as on the side of the angels, so that is really saying something. I have no doubt that if people discover incompetence wrongdoing or cover-up in the organisation they work for they should be able raise the matter and get it addressed internally - and if not to blow the whistle on it.

What has really pushed me into mentally classifying the Wikileaks site as a net disbenefit is the release of the US diplomatic communications.

There seems to be something irresponsibly, parochially naive about the mentality behind these releases the site have made, something self-congratulatory and it is an interesting choice of news organisations Julian Assange has chosen to share the greater details with.

One suspects it says something about his politics. Being suspicious, one wonders if any cash or quid-pro-quo is involved.

I find it difficult to imagine these releases of diplomatic information will not ultimately cost actual lives.

It may be Wikileaks is of the view you can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs. There are a disturbing number of people who seem to take that view. I can’t help feeling It a bankrupt, lazy, way of thinking, from a site who’s’ only real justification is taking the moral high ground.

Apologists have argued that US Diplomats should be more careful about their cables.

This is disingenuous. Diplomats are there to smooth situations and argue a countries part... well diplomatically with foreign powers. They are also there to give their own government a warts and all accurate clear eyed view of things. To do less would be a disservice to their nation and make for improperly informed faulty decision making.

They must be brutally honest in their assessments with their own government – not ‘diplomatic’.

It is not even as if we don't all know such frank assesments are made in private, or as if we don't all know the value of tempering our public utterances, unless we are so socially inept for it to be classed as a 'condition'. The mere fact that such communications exist can hardly be cause to lay them bare. They may on the face of it seem two faced, but there needs to be some greater over-riding need.

To argue they should be more careful suggests either a flippant, possibly deliberate misunderstanding, or the sort of thinking that can justify stealing someone’s TV if they forget to lock their door when they go out.

To me it all seems uncomfortably like someone overhearing a husband and wife privately discussing a used car salesman, his merchandise and their available cash in the middle of making a deal – and then shouting it out to all and sundry including the staff in the car dealership. Basically a pretty scummy thing to do in those circumstances.

Politicians have denounced the site, some suggesting it be classed as a terrorist organisation. Intriguingly one of those particularly incensed is Representative Peter King (New York), possibly suffering from a serious case of double standards, is calling for Wikileaks to be designated as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization" and outlawed in the US.

A long supporter of the political wing of the IRA he might know a thing or two about “foreign terrorist organizations”...

On balance it is probably not a terrorist organisation. Although one fears there can be little doubt that some of the information they release will be of succour and assistance to terrorist organisations and powers unfriendly to the US.These latest releases seem more akin to spying than to terrorism. The documents were clearly stolen. Wikileaks will argue what they are doing is justified in the greater public interest.

It may have been true in the past. In this and in recent instances that is surely questionable. One wonders why no one has attempted to legally gag the site as might be a newspaper. One wonders if that is largely to avoid inflaming conspiracists imaginations.

Interestingly Wikileaks claimed to be under ‘cyber attack’ just prior to their releasing the information. A denial of service attack they claimed. This is where multiple botnet controlled computers are made to access a site in huge numbers. Assange seemed to imply the US might be behind the ‘attack’ attempting to ‘silence’ the site.

It all sounds most ‘conspiracy theory’ish until, if you have even half a brain, you realise there would have been massive worldwide interest in the site after they touted the so-called release. This would have resulted in huge numbers of people attempting to access the site, especially just before the information was published as they kept checking back – Still it helps pump Assange’s ego and publicity machine some more.

No deliberate ‘denial of service’ just overwhelming interest. Weirdly many media outlets uncritically pass the denial of service clams on unchallenged, don’t reporters have any understanding of the net?

Suspect attempted mass murderer’s self justification full of holes

I happened to catch the confused pathetic inept and juvenile attempt at self justification of the would be mass murderer Ahmed Abdulla Ali’s so-called ‘martyrdom’ video on TV yesterday.

I noted he was careful to try to address certain points. He was for instance anxious to point out that he had not been ‘brainwashed’ and was "educated to a high standard" and "old enough" to make his own decisions. Though age and education are no bars to ideological blindness and confused, illogical thinking.

Brainwashed? Certainly there is something peculiar, or out of the ordinary in the way strong belief can, in certain individuals, often combined with prejudice, hatred or racism, allow them to justify terrible crimes against others to themselves, that normal decent people would baulk at.

I thought it telling when he said that: ”"This the opportunity to punish and humiliate the kuffar (all non Moslems), to teach them a lesson they will never forget.” this would appear to indicate a deep religiously based hatred of all who do not share his particular beliefs, or surely he would not have used those particular terms. It is reasonable to conclude he felt that Kuffars needed to be taught a damned good lesson, simply for the crime of being Kuffars.

The thing that really struck me as undermining his whole house mental of cards was that he justified the evil he planned on the basis that the public had collectively voted for the government who were apparently oppressing his people’s lands.

His peoples lands? He lived and had made a home in the UK. He had benefited from this. He no doubt expected to enjoy and in fact did and still does benefit from the rights and protections that come with that. Among other things it allows him to plead not guilty in the face of what amounts to his own self made recorded confession.

He complained that the public hadn’t protested sufficiently against, presumably the removal of Saddam Hussein, or possibly the situation in Israel.

That they were willing to pressure the government over fox hunting, but not over his perceived persecution of Moslems. "You don't care about the Muslims that are being killed."

This sounds rather like a set piece of anti Western Democracy rhetoric circulated by hate mongers that he was not bright enough to see through. It is paranoia to suppose that bad things that happen to people who also happen to be Muslims take place because they are Muslims.

It does not follow at all that simply because there were protests and because a fox hunting ban was imposed the British public does not care that Muslims, or anyone else, are being killed. It is a Non-Sequitur and is easily shown to be the lie it is by the outcry over the killing of Muslims in the Balkans when British troops, together with other western troops including American troops, were sent in specifically to prevent this. He conveniently chooses to ignore this, or perhaps never picked it up in the course of his vaunted ‘education’.

Any deaths in Iraq are squarely at the door of the insurgents many coming in from outside the country who seem to be doing to prevent it ever getting on it’s feet. Western troops would have been long gone by now if it were not for this. It is the insurgents who are deliberately slaughtering presumably fellow Muslims wholesale.

If he felt that further demonstrations (because there were demonstrations) might have helped he could have organised a pressure group, peaceful protests, lobbying. He chose not to do this.

He also fails to follow his own distorted logic to it’s conclusion. It is probable he would have had the opportunity to vote. By his own logic he is as ‘responsible’ as any other member of the electorate for the wrongs he apparently perceives. By his own logic he is just as deserving of ‘punishment’.

Treason - Just too old fashioned a word for New-Labour

It seems that Treason may be just too old fashioned for New Labour.

Ex attorney General Lord Goldsmith is planning to ditch it as part of a ‘review’.

Now it may be because Gordon Brown is just too squeamish to charge British citizens with it who commit it by fighting against British troops at home or abroad, or attempting to kill British civilians going about their lawful business. It is an emotive word, even though that is exactly what they have done. They can't possibly be charged with it if it is done away with though and that would save a bit of official squirming among the Islington tendency political classes.

Or it may be New labour are mindful of the fact that it could easily be argued that Gordon Brown has already committed it in signing up to the Lisbon ‘Treaty’, or the majority of their MPs a quite a few Lib Dem MPs and Two ot three conservative ones committed it the other day, when they agreed to it…

Clegg betrays Lib-Dem manifesto promise

As predicted Gordon Brown is a step closer to his eventual EU commissioner hood. He has ridden roughshod over democracy to force the Lisbon Treaty down the nation’s reluctant throat.

Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg was interviewed last night on Sky News 24 on the 19:00 slot.

They were mostly asking some difficult questions about his sacking of the only honourable members of his shadow cabinet/front bench team, the ones who had voted for a referendum.

The presenter was interested in if he was going to punish any of the other Lib-Dem MPs who had defied the party whip imposing his will, in order to vote as their manifesto had promised they would.

He blustered a bit, but tellingly when they asked what he thought people would think of the way he forced many Lib-Dem MPs to vote against their consciences he suggested the Conservatives had somehow been ‘mealy mouthed’ in trying to make acceptance dependant on a referendum. He said as closely as I can recall “If the Conservatives had their way it wouldn’t change things for one moment”.

He seemed to be acknowledging that even a no vote in a referendum wouldn’t stop, or even delay, the European project, or the constitution – and in this he is probably right. The previous no votes haven’t made a jot of difference, so why should a referendum result?

He is wrong though and it says something detrimental about his character that he thinks this way. Not necessarily wrong about the eventual outcome, but wrong about the futility of standing up for what you believe in, even if you may be doomed to ultimately fail, there is still a chance you could make a difference.

This is something he apparently does not understand. It is to their credit that some of 'his' MPs do.

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November...

“Remember, remember, the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
I know of no reason,
why Gunpowder Treason,
should ever be forgot…”


It is at this time of year that we, in the UK, celebrate ‘Guy Fawkes night’, November the 5th. Though more often at the weekends either side of it. In remembrance of a plot to blow up parliament in 1605.

It is said that that Fawkes was: "The only man to ever enter parliament with honourable intentions"

These days it sometimes seems we celebrate it, almost as much for the fact that someone actually had a go in the first place - as for the foiling of the attempt.

Guy Fawkes (13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606), b. 13 April 1570 in Stonegate, in the city of York and former centre of power of Richard III.

Christened 'Guye Fawxe and raised a Protestant Anglican he became a Roman Catholic at 16, possibly because his tutor at school was Roman Catholic possibly because his stepfather was.

He joined the army of Archduke Albert of Austria and went to fight alongside the armies of Catholic Spain, against the Protestant United Provinces in the Netherlands.

It around then that he took to calling himself Guido, the Spanish version of Guy. He served for many years as a soldier and in the process gained became an explosives expert.

A group of English Roman Catholics, lead by Robert Catesby, hatched a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, during the state opening when all the movers and shakers would be there.

The plan being, killing King James I of England and ending Protestant ascendancy by wiping out everyone crowded into parliament. They probably picked Fawkes, as much for his expertise with explosives, as his muscular devotion to Roman Catholicism.

James was a moderate for the time, criticising both fundamentalist Puritans and Catholics. So there was little assistance on offer from an over extended Spain.

The plan was due to be carried out on November the 5, 1605. Guy was looking after the explosives hidden in the cellars of Parliament in the early hours when he was caught red handed and arrested.

One of the plotters had let the cat out of the bag by warning William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, not to attend the sate opening. William Parker went to the authorities and that was the end of that.

Fawkes was made of pretty stern stuff and refused to reveal who his fellows were, even under torture – until they did the job for him. Realising it had all gone wrong they rather gave the game away by taking up arms against the authorities.

Fawkes was found guilty and executed.

The BBC ran a poll in 2002, to find out who the public thought were the ‘100 Greatest Britons of all time’. Guy came in at No 30…

Brown heading to EU summit set to betray electorate over Constitutional Treaty

Dave the Chameleon has called Gordon Broon Breeks on the promised NU-Lab Referendum on the EU Constitutional Treaty that Gordon is blocking. Gordon’s arguments are thread bare, as Ireland is planning a referendum and other nations are looking at the idea.

Gordon Bottled on an election and he is bottling on a referendum. The only logical reason for him to bottle on a referendum is that he does not believe he would get the result he wants in that, any more than he had confidence in his ability to succeed in a general election.

It is quite clear, that if he felt he would win a referendum he would organise one in a trice - and then claim a mandate to betray parliamentary democracy. As it is he is left trying to come up with excuses to avoid a Referendum and getting in Barroso’s bad books.

Broon Breeks tried to claim it was not actually a constitutional treaty at all, only an (is this a new one?) “amending” treaty. He is making out that this is because we have ‘red lines’, or opt outs - as if they will be safe from being over ridden and nullified by the European court.

It is difficult to imagine he actually believes any of this guff.

Given Nu-Lab were elected on a manifesto promise of a referendum that the average voter will interpret as having been broken, for all Broon’s hot air, it is clear he is not acting in the interests of those who elected the Government - or British Parliamentary Democracy.

Foreign Office Minister advocates UK gives up Permanent Seat on UN Security Council

Former UN Deputy Secretary General and now newly minted UK Foreign Office Minister, Lord Malloch-Brown (what is it with Nu-Lab PMs littering the ranks of the not necessarily derserving high and mighty with namesakes?) is advocating the UK gives up it’s seat on the UN Security Council to the EU.

Nice to know the Foreign Office Minister has Parliament and the UK’s very best interests at heart then ;-)

After all, we can be 100% sure the EU would vote just the way we would want, in every set of circumstances, knowing how similarly the French and Germans see things to us, in all circumstances. Surely the French should be falling over themselves to give up their seat.

Day, Cold, Hell, In?

This was obviously in his master plan last October, while he was still the UN's Deputy Secretary General, when he advised EU diplomats in Brussels that the EU would eventually have single seat within the UN. "I think it will go in stages. We are going to see a growing spread of it institution by institution," He went on that he hoped it would happen "as quickly as possible. I'm a huge fan of it."

When confronted with this evidence the Foreign office argued that had made those comments before he was made a Government minister.

Oh well that’s all right then - So are they suggesting he lying then, to suit his words to what his audience wanted to hear - and does not still hold those views? Possibly quite a plausible argument when considering a politician’s words, but would you want to bet on it?

Or did his words reflect his true intentions and loyalties? If so where exactly are his primary loyalties?

With the UN or the EU?

Why would a PM who was loyal to parliament appoint someone like that?

The new EU Constitutional ‘Treaty’ is virtually a ‘cut and paste job’

The official English translation of the New EU Constitutional ‘Treaty’ is now out – It has not gone unnoticed that they waited until Parliament were off on their 10 week summer break.

They have taken out the actual word 'constitution' and have avoided enshrining legal status to the EU flag, motto and anthem.

They have done a Find/Replace on ‘Foreign Minister’ and changed those references to ‘High Representative’. Mmmm - ‘Catchy’. They must have been reading Lord of the Rings again.

Conservative foreign affairs spokesman, William Hague, pointed out:

"We can see clearly what a cut-and-paste job this is from the old EU constitution. Virtually everything that was in the old EU constitution is in this treaty."

William Hague is pretty much spot on there. It also includes a handy replacement ‘ratchet clause’ lifted more-or-less word for word from the constitution allowing the EU to scrap national vetoes and sidestep referendums. All the rage with the european elite these days.

So much for Gordon Brown and his smokescreen ‘red lines’. How does he look at himself in the mirror each morning when he shaves?

Constitution II - Just when you thought it was safe...

This is how they sell you down the river - Tony Blair secretly agreed the blueprint for an updated version of the failed European Union constitution, devised by the German Chancellor, Angelea Merkel, to circumvent the constitution’s rejection by French and Dutch voters. They are calling it a ‘treaty’ in the hope the dimmer citizens don’t cotton on.

Margaret Beckett, the UK Foreign Secretary, attempted to claim that "nothing you could really call negotiations" had actually taken place as MPs, from all parties protested, pointing out that the new ‘treaty’ was largely comprised of measures contained in the rejected EU constitution vetoed by the French and Dutch referenda in 2005.

This is the same Tony Blier who promised, presumably with his fingers crossed behind his back, in 2004, that there would be a referendum in Britain on the original EU constitution. “Let the people have the final say.", he trumpeted when backed into a corner, after months of trying to avoid one, the government insisting that no public vote was necessary.

Clearly he has changed his mind back again, as later this month, just before stepping down, a man bereft of a mandate, his political remit effectively bankrupt, he is planning(while he can still get away with it) to sign Britain up to a treaty, designed to increase the EU's power and to enact, by the back door, many of the proposals originally planned for the constitution.

Presumably this is to be more of his tainted ‘Legacy’. It is enough to make you despair of the whole political process.

What will the French and Dutch voters make of this betrayal of the democratic process? This cynical negation of their democratically expressed will.

Do the British electorate care enough to resist being disenfranchised?